


Requiem

by javajunkie



Category: The Queen's Gambit (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Beth Harmon/Benny Watts - Freeform, Canon Divergence, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:07:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27762745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/javajunkie/pseuds/javajunkie
Summary: Beth takes up Benny's offer to get drunk in New York after her defeat in Paris.
Relationships: Beth Harmon/Benny Watts
Comments: 44
Kudos: 234





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know this story has been done before, but I wanted to try my own version of what would have happened if Beth had taken up Benny's offer for her to go to New York after Paris. I plan to take this all the way through the Russia tournament!

_“What if I said, okay. Okay, get drunk. Would you come then?”_

She said yes sober, but by the time she lands in Lexington, she is four glasses of wine in from the flight and toeing the line between functional drunk and splayed spread-eagle on the pavement. It’s a wonder she makes it into a cab, and as the cab sails down Interstate 64, the fourth glass of wine hits. Her head spins and she wonders if it’s the car or her. Maybe a bit of both. When they get to her house, she pays the driver 50 dollars for a 20-dollar fare and almost leaves her luggage in the trunk, but the cab driver calls after her about that. He keeps the change. The house has a sort of stale and musty smell from her absence, but she doesn’t notice it as she collapses on the couch. She sleeps the sort of dense, dead-like sleep that only happens after nearly a bottle of wine, and wakes up to the sound of knocking at her front door. When she passes a mirror in living room, she notices a deep red crease on her cheek from where it had been pressed against the couch cushion seam.

Beth is surprised to find Benny on the other side of the door until she remembers what they had discussed before all of the wine.

“You didn’t trust me to get to New York on my own?” she asks, eyes half-closed from the sunlight. It was an overcast day, but even the slight brightness made her eyelids retreat.

“Frankly, no. Are you still coming?”

“Can I still get drunk?”

Benny exhales sharply and reaches up to take off his hat. “Sure. That was the deal, right?”

“It was.”

“I’ll help you pack your things.”

* * *

It’s a long drive to New York and it feels even longer hungover. Benny pulls over numerous times for her to puke out the passenger side door, and when her dull headache reaches a fever pitch, they stop at a gas station for coffee. She isn’t in the mood to talk, so he puts on music, reminding her of their first trip down to New York from Cincinnati. The memory makes her sad, because it was _before_. Most of her memories had that sense of melancholy now. In her mind, there was a sort of partition before and after Paris. Everything before was decidedly better.

When Benny parks in front of his apartment, she doesn’t mistake one of the nicer walk-ups for his place again. Instead, she follows him down to the industrial and drafty apartment he called home and walked into the kitchen, looking around for something to drink. Behind her, Benny says, “I said you could get drunk. I didn’t say I’d pay for it.”

She turns around. “Where’s the nearest liquor store?”

“Two blocks down. On Harper Street.”

“Do you want anything?”

Benny shakes his head. “No. Nothing for me.”

* * *

Beth returns with a handle of whiskey and two bottles of a cheap red wine. She pours herself a tall glass of red and leans against the kitchen counter. It burns her throat in a delicious sort of way when she drinks it and she can feel the beginning of warmth spreading in her chest. She drinks more.

“Do you want to talk about Paris?” Benny asks.

“Not particularly.”

“You should talk about it.”

“Well, ask me after I finish this bottle. Maybe my answer will change.”

“Beth-“

“I fucked up. What else is there to talk about?”

“This isn’t the end. You still have Russia.”

Beth takes another sip of wine, wiping at her chin when a bit of it dribbles from the side of her mouth. She used to be embarrassed by such shows of imperfection. Not anymore. Those flashing lights in Paris ensured that half the world had photographic evidence of one of her hangovers. What was a little wine dribble?

“I don’t want to talk about Russia. Or Paris. Right now, I want to get drunk. So, either join me or leave me alone.”

Benny shakes his head and walks off to his bedroom.

* * *

Despite how things had been before Russia, Benny didn’t know exactly where he stood with Beth, so before he goes to bed he inflates the air mattress. When he wakes up the next morning, though, she is next to him in bed. She’s still wearing the dress from the day before, but wrapped in one of his floral robes. She clutches the material to her chest, like a small child holding on to a security blanket.

Benny knew that inviting her to get trashed in New York wasn’t the smartest idea, but waking up with her in his bed wearing his robe only serves to highlight just how fucked he was. He wanted to be there for her, but the way things were going, the only purpose he would serve would be as an observer to her spiral. 

Benny was familiar with alcoholics. He was raised by one, and was all too familiar with the rhythms of life with a mental illness. What he should have done is let her figure this all out on her own. Avoid catching himself in her unavoidable fall, but he couldn’t. In truth, he cared about her (the refusal to analyze that further was his own sort of blind spot) and with that, any sort of sense was in turn, senseless so long as she was with him. At least he could watch out for her and make sure she didn’t meet her end in a pool of vomit.

Beth stays true to their deal and proceeds to, in fact, get drunk for most waking hours of the day. It seems like she truly doesn’t care about anything until a few nights into her stay when she finishes off the handle of whiskey. She’s beyond the coherent part of the spectrum, but he understands her well enough when she says, “It’s all done. I’m done.”

She was addressing the whiskey bottle and she places it almost tenderly into the trash bin. They’re out of alcohol now, and it’s too late to get more, which is why she lets him steer her into the bedroom. He puts her to bed, pulling the covers up and tucking them under her chin. He goes to step back out in the kitchen when she says, “No, stay.”

And encapsulated in that moment, is the very reason he asked her to come in first place. He knew that at some point in all of this, she would need someone and he couldn’t stomach it being anyone else but him. Not Beltik. Not Townes. Not any other player that had passed through her life. He needed it to be him. And so he lays next to her in bed, letting her curl herself around him. She’s asleep within minutes, her breath reeking of whiskey, and he stares up at the ceiling, taking in the quiet moment with the knowledge that the noise would start up again tomorrow.


	2. Chapter 2

Benny made a critical error. In one of the interludes between Beth’s drunken states, Benny mentioned a band playing at one of the local bars. He thought it would be a good idea to get her out of the apartment. When he was younger, his dad used to take his mother for long drives in the space between the drinking, and there would always be a few more days of quiet after those drives. Maybe this could do the same and he and Beth could have a real conversation that wasn’t colored by a hangover or mild buzz.

He miscalculated on several levels. First, you cannot drink in a car, which was probably why it worked out so well for his parents. You can drink in a bar, and Beth does so copiously, starting off with beer and transitioning to some gin drink that he’s almost certain no one had ordered at the dank basement bar before, but Beth talks the bartender through it and, despite the crowd, he is surprisingly receptive. Second, Benny had never seen Beth dance, and when she dances, it’s like the rest of the men in the bar are drunk on her. 

Cleo joins them with Wexler and Levetov. She greets Benny with a kiss on both cheeks and then looks in the direction of Benny’s gaze. Beth is wrapped around a lanky man with a moustache, her hips moving in beat with the song playing. It isn’t a particularly melodic song, but Beth’s hips seem to tell their own story. Moustache dips his mouth down to her ear and Benny tightens his grip on his beer.

“It looks like you’re handling that well,” Cleo says.

Benny clears his throat and looks over at his friend nonchalantly. “Handling what?”

Cleo points one manicured finger toward Beth. “The mating ritual our Beth is taking part in over there.”

“I don’t own her,” Benny returns gruffly.

“Of course, you don’t. But that’s never stopped a man from being jealous before.”

“I’m not jealous.” He takes a pull from his beer. “So, where are you back from now? London?”

“Paris,” Cleo says crisply. She takes a puff of her cigarette. “Did Beth not tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“Nothing.”

Benny looks over at Cleo, suddenly pieces of the Paris story that he had never understood coming together, and he asks, “Tell me what?”

“Beth and the moustached man are leaving.”

Benny thinks to himself that this was particularly good timing for his friend, and he hesitates for a moment before following after Beth. He knew he had no real say in whether she went home with someone from the bar, but the four gin drinks he watched her consume over the course of the night made him uneasy. But by the time he reaches them, Beth had already disentangled herself from Moustache and is heading back toward the bar. He can see the eyes follow her. Behind him, Moustache grumbles, “Come _on_.”

Benny steps next to Beth at the bar as she turns toward him as she brightly says, “Hello Benny.”

“Hi Beth. You having fun?”

“Yes. I’m having a _marvelous_ time.”

It’s remarkable that after so many drinks she doesn’t slur her words. But something about her sounds practiced, like she’s mimicking a way of speaking she heard from someone else. She leans over the bar, her skirt rising in the back, as she calls out, “Another Gibson, please!”

“Cleo, Wexler and Levetov are here,” Benny says. “I hope that’s alright.”

A darkness passes over Beth’s face for a moment, but then she is smiling brightly again, and tells him, “Of course. That’s great.”

After a beat, he says, “You never told me that Cleo was in Paris with you.”

“It didn’t seem important.”

“Beth-“

“And besides, I don’t tell you everything.”

The bartender places the drink in front of her, and when she goes to pay he tells her, “It’s on the house. How does this one taste?”

Beth take a sip and nods appreciatively. “It’s perfect, Ricky. I’m telling you, you should add it to the menu.”

“I just might. Thanks, Beth.”

As she turns away, Benny remarks, “You’re on a first name basis with the bartender? I’ve been coming here for years.”

“Have you ever asked his name?”

“No. I can’t say I have.”

“Well, you should have asked his name.”

He doesn’t understand this Beth who is overly social and asks random bartenders their names. She hasn’t mentioned chess once, and when he tries to bring it up because it seems like the only way he can find his footing with her again, she doesn’t take the opening. She’s dancing again, taking breaks to steadily drain her drink, and she comes closer to him. She slings an arm around his neck, and then she is there in front of him, her mouth almost level with his and her eyes are doing the same thing they did back when she told him she liked his hair in Cincinnati. He wonders if she looked at Moustache the same way.

“Beth,” he says. His tone is guarded. Just a bit wry.

She grins and tilts her head to the side, matching his tone as she parrots, “Benny.”

She presses herself closer and his hand finds the curve of her lower back. This close, he can see the flecks of gold in her eyes. He hadn’t noticed that before. When she breathes, it’s all gin and vermouth, but then she tucks her cheek against his, her hips moving fluidly to some beat that only she can hear. His hand slides along her back until he is holding her against him. He wishes he could keep her here, safe in his arms, but he knows better than to think she can be contained. 

* * *

Throughout the rest of the night, the band plays on and somewhere during the last set, Beth dances with a man in a brown turtleneck, and then she leaves with him. Benny watches with a clenched jaw, and Cleo says, “I’m surprised you didn’t try to stop her.”

“She’s a big girl. Besides, how do you think that would have gone over?”

Cleo nods. “Fair point. How about we get you another drink?”

“I don’t want a drink.”

Cleo exchanges a look with Wexler and Levetov.

* * *

Beth wakes up with a headache and dry mouth. She is in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar apartment with a similarly unfamiliar man. On the floor, she sees a discarded brown turtleneck. Beth tries to remember the night before, but all she can dimly recall is being pressed against Benny, his arm securely around her waist. But somehow, she ended up here in a stranger’s bed. She feels her cheeks flush with shame, not for where she ended up but the fact that she had no memory of how she got there. She spies her dress balled up just under the bed and she grabs it, quickly pulling it over her head. Her company for the night sleeps through it all, even when she trips on her way out of the bedroom, her hand landing heavily – and loudly – on the wall.

When she gets back to Benny’s apartment, he is at the kitchen table drinking coffee. He appraises her coolly and says, “Good morning, Beth.”

“Good morning, Benny.”

She immediately showers, wanting to wash the night before off of her. She changes into a simple dress and wraps her wet hair up in a towel. Out in the kitchen, she pours herself a cup of coffee, recalling the feel of her body pressed against Benny. He is still at the table reading the paper, and with her back turned, she says, “I’m sorry.”

There’s a pause before he asks, “What for?” 

He’s both guarded and on the offensive at the same time. It’s a tactic she’s familiar with. She doesn’t know her next move. Relationships were different than chess. What to do or say next wasn’t clear to her, but there had always been somewhere she and Benny communicated clearly.

“Do you want to play chess?”

He looks up at her with surprise and then nods. “Sure.”

They don’t speak as they play, but the movement of the pieces is, in its own way, a conversation. She sacrifices her Queen in a manner that would seem foolhardy, but Benny can see the endgame. In another three moves, she’ll have control of the center of the board and pin his king with her knight. Even hungover, she’s spectacular.

“Why do you do it?” he asks. “The drinking. You lost one game. It’s not the end of the world.”

“I know it’s not. But they all saw it.”

“Saw what, you lose?” he asks, not understanding. She lost to one of the most highly ranked chess players in the world. Sure, it was a disappointment, but not entirely unexpected given Borgov’s track record.

“They’ll see that I’m damaged goods. Before I could hide it with a win and nice dress. But now, there’s photographic evidence in the London Times. I can’t hide anymore.”

“So, that’s why you drink? Because you can’t hide that you are human?”

“No,” she says dully. “I’m guessing I drink because my birth mother killed herself with me in the car. And I found my adoptive mother dead in her bed during a tournament in Mexico.” She takes a sip of coffee. “I drink the amount I do now because I don’t care anymore.”

Benny doesn’t know what to say. He had heard about what happened in Mexico, but she never talked about it, and he figured if she didn’t bring it up it wasn’t his place to ask. This was the first time he learned about her birth mother. He wants to tell her that no one person should have to lose that many people before the age of twenty. That she was a marvel for getting as far as she did while carrying all of that pain. But Benny had never been good at this sort of thing, so instead, he starts to line up his pieces and asks, “Again?”

Another person may have taken this as a cold response, but Beth is like him, and she understands that this was his version of a warm word. She nods and gathers the errant white pieces from the board.


	3. Chapter 3

A few weeks into Beth’s stay in New York, she remembers that she was supposed to compete at a Kentucky tournament that weekend. She has no interest in going, largely due to the schnapps-red wine combination from the night before, but Benny convinces her, telling her that it would be good to get out of the apartment. He didn’t chance taking her to a bar again after what happened before, so she spent most of her days either drunk at the table, on the air mattress or on his bed.

Benny offers to drive her and they set off toward Kentucky. She lost her sunglasses somewhere between her whiskey and schnapps phase, so she wears one of Benny’s pairs. They’re too large on her face and she has to constantly push them up the bridge of her nose. 

“Have you thought anymore about Moscow?” Benny asks, exiting one highway for another. She remembers from the last drive that they have at least two more of these changes before they are back in Kentucky.

“Not really.”

“If you’re still going, we should start training soon.”

“Of course, I’m still going.”

He looks over with surprise and then returns his eyes to the road. “Okay. You’re going.”

Beth shifts in her seat. “Besides, if I lose they’ll have good vodka for me to get drunk on after. So, it’s a win-win.”

“Sure,” Benny returns flatly. “You’ll need a second to go with you.”

“I know.”

“It should be a strong player. Someone who can give you an advantage.”

She nods and says, “Okay, so, Beltik?”

He grins, because she’s joking and it makes her sound so much like the Beth he knew before Paris.

“I was thinking me,” he clarifies. “You should take me with you.”

“I’ll think about it,” she says.

* * *

After a very long drive, Benny parks his car in front of Beth’s house and they go inside. Mail is stacked in front of the door and Beth picks it up, tossing it on the kitchen table without looking at it. Benny catches sight of a bill on the top and asks, “Don’t you have to pay those?”

She shrugs. “I’ll get to it.”

Benny wonders just how much she neglected following him to New York, but he doesn’t ask. Something about being back at her house makes him cautious. He isn’t the one in charge here.

Beth goes into the kitchen and pours herself a tall glass of water, drinking it down in three or four large gulps. Under the overhead lighting, Benny notices the sallow pallor of her skin. Her normally chiseled face is rounded now in a way that seems to suggest something trying to get out rather than what went in. 

“I’m going to go to bed,” she says. 

She doesn’t ask him to follow her up the stairs, but he does anyway, grabbing his bag on the way up. He glances at a startling pink bedroom as they pass and, somehow, he knows that it used to be hers. For some reason, the top of the canopy bed is ripped open. 

She walks in to the other bedroom and without a word, takes off her dress. Even though he has seen all of her before, he turns around for propriety and goes into his bag to pull out a pair of flannel pajamas. He changes and turns around just as she is buttoning up the last of her shirt. She smiles at him almost shyly and then climbs into bed. He lays down next to her and they both look up at the ceiling, the silence between them like another presence in the room. After a moment, she looks over at him. She looks like she is about to say something, which is a relief to Benny because he doesn’t have the slightest clue what to say. But then, she seems to think the better of it and turns away from him, reaching up to turn off the light.

* * *

He wakes up in the middle of the night and hears her downstairs in the kitchen. There’s the distinct sound of glass clinking. After a few minutes, she walks back into the room and directly to the bathroom, shutting the door at a volume that tells him she isn’t exactly sober. After a few seconds, she comes back to bed and restlessly shifts a few times before falling asleep.

* * *

When Benny finds her downstairs the next morning, her eyes hold the familiar glaze. She smiles weakly, bringing a coffee mug up to her mouth. He notices her hand shakes.

“Do you want some company for today?” he asks.

She shakes her head. “I’m fine. Besides, you’d be bored out of your mind.”

She finishes her coffee and then goes upstairs to get ready. When she comes down, she’s wearing a slim pair of pants and a sweater. She passes him to grab her purse from the kitchen counter, and he notices the smudged eyeliner around her eyes. It looks like a mixture of something new with what she hadn’t washed off the night before.

“Alright, I’ll see you when I get back,” she says.

Benny doesn’t really know what to do with himself in a strange house, so after a perhaps overly detailed analysis of all the artwork on the first floor, he decides to straighten up. He does the dishes from breakfast and goes through the pile of mail to sort out bills that needed to be paid. He heads upstairs to change and stops again in front of the pink bedroom. Part of him knows he shouldn’t be snooping around the house, but he goes into the room, anyway. He looks around slowly, his eyes coming again to the torn canopy. Slowly, he stretches out on top of the bedspread and looks up at the revealed expanse of ceiling. He tries to imagine what Beth would have seen there. Idly, he imagines a chess board, the pieces moving fluidly across the space. After a moment, he sits up and goes back to the other bedroom to change.

* * *

Benny can tell that Beth is upset when she comes home. She mutters something about Henry Beltik as she passes Benny on her way to the kitchen, pulling a cork from a half-drunk bottle of wine and drinking directly from the bottle. He asks her if she wants to talk about it, but she shakes her head, loudly dropping the bottle back onto the counter.

“Everyone loves to judge me. Without understanding anything.”

“Beth-“

“Beltik. _You_.”

“Hey, I’m not judging you,” he says, stepping forward. “Sure, I think you drink too much, but I’m pretty sure any casual observer would agree with that.”

“Fuck you,” she spits out irritably. 

“Really?” He returns, matching her tone. “Fuck you? That’s how you’re going to be?”  
Beth takes another swig of wine. “Yeah, that’s how I’m going to be.”

“I’m going out,” Benny says, storming out of the kitchen.

* * *

He drives around Lexington, his mood souring with each turn. Why was he even trying to help someone who so clearly didn’t want help? It was his mother all over again. Except, it wasn’t. Over the years, he had become resigned to his mother drinking herself to death, but he couldn’t accept that for Beth. He still felt there was a chance to get through to her, but he was beginning to wonder if it was worth the beating he would take in the interim. 

He comes back well after dinnertime and the front door is unlocked. Beth is already in her bedroom, the door firmly shut, so he goes into the spare bedroom, lying down and staring up at the torn canopy again. After an hour or so, he falls asleep. When he wakes up, there is someone next to him in the bed. Beth is on her side on the top of the bedspread with her hands folded under her head. It occurs to him that there is no motivation for her to be there other than to be near him for whatever reason, and any anger that he held for earlier dissipated. He reaches forward and pushes a bit of her hair away from her face. Beth shifts forward at the contact, her cheek coming to rest on his arm.

When he wakes up in the morning, she is still there with her cheek resting on his arm. While she slept, she curled a hand around his bicep like she was trying to keep him close. Unfortunately, the arm was now asleep, and when he tries to move it slightly, she wakes up. 

“Morning, Beth.”

“Good morning,” she says, pulling away and clutching the edge of her pillow instead of his arm. When he moves, the entire arm shoots to painful life, but he doesn’t mind. The pain is worth being this close to her, and he’s too close to it all for him to think that through. 

"What's that about?" he asks, gesturing up toward the torn canopy.

Beth closes her eyes. "If I tell you, you'll think I'm crazy."

"Try me."

She turns on her back, gazing upwards. "Okay. Back when I was at Metheun, when I couldn't sleep I used to play chess on the ceiling. When I got here, I couldn't do it on the canopy, so I ripped it."

Benny doesn't think there's anything crazy about that, and he tells her so. Beth turns back on her side.

“I’m sorry for what I said before,” she murmurs. 

“Okay.”

“And that I have to keep saying sorry.” She looks down. “Sometimes I wonder why you’re even still here.”

The answer is simple and it never truly crystalized in his mind until this moment. He goes to speak when there is a knock on the front door downstairs. Beth gets out of bed and walks downstairs with Benny following her a moment later. Benny doesn’t recognize the tall black woman in the doorway, but Beth clearly does.

“Jolene.”

“Hi there, cracker.” She glances over Beth’s shoulder. “I see you have company.”

Beth steps back to let her in. “This is Benny. Benny, this is Jolene. We grew up together.”

Benny scratches the back of his head and says, “It’s nice to meet you, Jolene.”

Beth steps back to let Jolene in, nervously watching her old friend take a look around the house. Beth instinctively steps back toward Benny and she’s relieved then for the straightening up he did yesterday. If he hadn’t, there would have still been enough empty wine bottles to bowl with in the kitchen.

“You’ve done well for yourself,” Jolene notes with a soft grin. “I’m happy for you.”

“Thank you. So, are you just passing through Lexington or something?"

“No, I wasn't,” Jolene says, her face sobering. “Beth, Mr. Shaibel died.” 


	4. Chapter 4

Despite all the death that Beth experienced in her life, she had never gone to a funeral before. With her adoptive mother, she had opted for a simple burial instead of a whole ceremony knowing her mother wouldn’t have wanted all the attention. Beth knows the general rule about wearing black and lays out three different dresses on her bed to choose from. Benny is sitting to the side of the room quietly. He had been like this ever since Jolene gave her the news. Just there, quietly waiting to see if he would be needed. 

“I don’t know why this is so difficult,” Beth says, staring at the dresses. “It’s not like anyone is going to care what I wear.”

“You want to get it right,” Benny says.

Beth looks up at him, thinking for not the first time just how similarly they think. She does want to get it right. She thinks about how she never sent Mr. Shaibel the money back for her first win. Even though he was the reason it happened. Maybe he didn’t care. Mr. Shaibel probably never thought of her again after he sent the letter. She was just another orphan who came and went. Even as she thinks that, she knows it’s not true. She remembers him standing at the doorway when she drove away in the Wheatleys car. He always stayed in the background, but not then. She needs to get this right.

Benny is beside her and he points at a simple black dress with a white peter pan collar.

“I like that one.”

She nods. “Okay.”

* * *

Benny hadn’t known if he would go with them to the funeral, but both Beth and Jolene immediately reference him in the plurality of the day. We should get going. We don’t want to be late. Jolene references him directly when she says, “You know they won’t let you wear that hat indoors.”

It is such an archaic tradition and it gives Benny some insight into how Beth had grown up. It put her fastidious dressing in a new light.

Benny leaves his hat on the kitchen table and follows the pair out to Jolene’s car. He sits in the back and Jolene pays him intermittent glances in the rearview mirror as they drive. He can tell that she is still suspicious of him, like a sister appraising her sibling’s new beau. She generally doesn’t address him after the hat comment back at the house, instead keeping an easy flow of conversation with Beth. He doesn’t think much of it, keeping his gaze out the window until he hears his name.

“So, what are you and Benny doing out in New York?”

Benny wonders how Beth will respond, since the truth is largely just her getting drunk, and sure enough she covers with, “He’s training me for Moscow.”

“When is that again?”

“January,” Beth says.

“It figures they’d have that during the coldest month,” Jolene says.

“That’s the Russians for you,” Beth returns, her voice just shy of charismatic.

Jolene is quiet for a moment before she says, “He would be proud of you, you know.”  
Beth reaches forward and turns on the radio.

* * *

The chapel is small, and even with the limited seating, it is nowhere close to crowded. Beth, Jolene and Benny sit near the back, Beth quiet and both of her companions checking on her every so often during the mass. Beth stares straight ahead, not quite hearing the words of the priest. She actively avoids looking at the casket, but then at a certain point, it is all she can look at. It is a simple lacquered wooden box with decorative grooves along the top. It seems out of character for its inhabitant, who was the farthest from decorative. She thinks of him in there and wonders if he looks like her mother did. If it was still fresh enough that the line between dead and living seems arbitrary.

“Beth.”

She hadn’t realized that the mass ended. People began to filter out of the chapel, making a pass around the casket in a way that seemed to Beth ceremonial and largely unnecessary. She knew she would gain nothing from walking past a wooden box, so she walks directly out of the chapel. Blinking in the bright sunlight, something feels off. 

“We can grab lunch at one of those diners we passed on the way here,” Jolene says.

“I actually had something else in mind.”

* * *

Metheun is not far from the chapel and when Jolene parks the car, they both look at the building with some degree of trepidation. The scars that the two women bore from that building may have been different, but they were equally powerful, running lines into their adult lives. Jolene asks Beth if she wants her to go with her and Beth shakes her head.

“I’ll be okay.”

She steps out of the car but then hesitates, turning back to the car. She doesn't look at Jolene. Benny takes the cue and gets out of the car, walking to Beth's side. She takes his hand without a word and they walk to the building. Benny doesn’t think it is a particularly imposing building, but he can feel Beth shrink beside him. When they step in an older woman spots them down the hallway and Beth drops his hand.

“You should be at chapel,” the woman says.

“Yes, ma’am,” Beth returns automatically.

They continue walking, veering to the right and coming upon a closed door. Beth opens it and walks down the familiar set of stairs and turns to see the familiar table and chairs. The weight on her chest grows heavier, but necessarily so. She had felt nothing in the chapel, because although his body was there, _he_ wasn’t. Here in the basement, she can feel him everywhere. 

She notices a previously bare wall covered in clippings and walks over slowly, knowing what she is about to see and yet still somehow not prepared. Her entire chess career is mapped out on the wall. Each newspaper article carefully clipped and tacked to the wall. Her eyes follow the maze of articles and when her eyes are too blurry to see, she blinks away tears. 

Her gaze falls on a photograph of her and Mr. Shaibel that was taken in that very basement. Neither is smiling but she remembers the awkward thrill she had felt putting her hand on his shoulder. Like a child finally getting to hold the hand of a distant father. Her eyes travel down and she sees it. There, in black-and-white, the article from the London Times. Bleary eyes look back at her from the wall. She remembers how she felt in that moment. Ashamed. Broken. And yet, here it is amongst all of her triumphs. She realizes that, in Mr. Shaibel’s eyes, Paris had been indistinguishable from them.

A hand closes over her shoulder and she murmurs, “Mr. Shaibel taught me how to play chess when I was eight years old. He sent me money for my first tournament. I promised to pay him back with the winnings, but I never did.”

“I doubt he remembered.”

“The letter is right there,” she says, pointing at it on the wall.

“I meant, he probably didn’t care. He was clearly proud of you.”

Beth takes a deep breath. “I can beat the Russians.”

“I know you can.”

His voice is steady and straight-forward. In a way, it reminds her of Mr. Shaibel. She reaches into her purse and opens her coin purse, taking out a ten-dollar bill. She carefully takes the tack out of the letter she sent all those years ago, and reaffixes it to the wall with the money attached. She looks at her handiwork and begins to cry. 

When Beth and Benny return to the car, Jolene takes in Beth’s red-rimmed eyes and says, “You bit off more than you can chew, huh?”

“I’m ready to go now.”

Jolene nods. "Okay."

* * *

They do stop at one of those diners on the way back, and then Jolene stays and visits a bit longer, joining them for a leisurely dinner before she heads back out. Beth does the dishes with Benny’s help and then proceeds to empty each bottle of liquor, one by one, into the sink. Neither address it, but a chapter had clearly closed. He sets up the chess board on the kitchen table and they play well into the night. Half past midnight, she says, “Let’s go to bed.”

“So, that’s a draw?”

It was their third game, and they each had one win in their pocket. 

She yawns wide. “Yes, Benny. We can each be co-champions of this tournament in my kitchen.”

Benny grins. He feels like he has gotten her back.

They head upstairs and Beth is almost too tired to change, but she forces herself to put on an oversized nightgown – she is too tired to mess with buttons – and then curls up in bed. Benny joins her and, without hesitation, she turns toward him, resting her head on his chest with her arm slung over his waist. 

“Thank you for being there today,” she says.

“You’re welcome.”

“And thank you for being here.”

He presses a kiss to the top of her head and asks, “Anything else you want to thank me for? I can give some suggestions.”

She grins, closing her eyes. It had been a long time since she felt this steady. “We’re going to have to start training for Moscow.”

“I’ve already been thinking about it,” Benny says, because, of course, he has. He outlines his strategy and Beth says, “That sounds good.”

“Just good? You know, some people would pay a lot of money for training like that.”

“I know,” she returns easily, lifting her head so that their eyes are level. “And isn’t it nice that I don’t have to?”

He goes to say something when she leans forward and kisses him. They hadn’t done this since before Paris, and he hadn’t realized how much he missed it. He kisses her back, hand framing her face and guiding her mouth more soundly down against his. The nightgown becomes an unexpectedly good choice of clothing and after some slight maneuvering, she sinks down onto him. He lets her set the pace, his hands traveling along the expanse of her back, trying to feel every inch of her. When they are finished, she collapses onto his chest. 

“Consider that payment for your training,” she says breathlessly. He laughs and she presses her face into the nook of his neck wrapping her arms around him. It’s like she cannot hold him close enough, and he knows the feeling. He cannot entirely read what is going on in her mind, but her actions speak clearly enough. They stay that way, wrapped up in each other, and fall into a dreamless sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know if you'd like to see more!


End file.
